1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and apparatus for enhancing a GNSS receiver's position computation capability using terrain model information.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a positioning receiver for a Global Navigation Satellite System (“GNSS”), such as the Global Positioning System (“GPS”), GLONASS, and GALILEO, uses measurements from several satellites to compute or determine the receiver's position. The GNSS receiver may determine the initial position (or “first fix”) by processing signals transmitted from at least three, but usually, four satellites (collectively “satellite signals”). With these satellite signals, the positioning receiver may solve for the position using four unknowns. These four unknowns typically include the information corresponding to three dimensions (e.g., a latitude, longitude, and altitude) and a common-mode-timing error.
As is well known, however, having a-priori estimates for any of these four unknowns is advantageous because such information typically reduces time, processing power, and battery usage (if battery powered) for acquiring the satellite signals and for determining the position using such satellite signals. Of the three dimensions that may be supplied with a-priori estimates, common commercial implementations of the positioning receiver typically provide an initial a-priori estimate of altitude. This initial a-priori estimate of altitude may fix the altitude at zero or some other altitude (“fixed altitude”). Using the fixed altitude to determine the position, however, may result in the position being substantially incorrect.
In other prior implementations, the GNSS receiver was provided with and used large-scale, comprehensive, point-based or grid-based terrain models to obtain the a-priori estimates of altitude. However, these and the other prior implementations may require large amounts of memory and significant processing power to store, retrieve, and process the large-scale, comprehensive, point-based or grid-based terrain models, or more specifically, the information defined within the large-scale, comprehensive, point-based or grid-based terrain models.
Therefore, a need exists in the art for a method and apparatus for enhancing a GNSS receiver such that the position may be rapidly determined by using an accurate estimate of altitude.